Love and Hate
Morgan Spurlock is kinda a douchebag. Supersize Me was a great flick with an amateur political viewpoint and with too much of a treehugging libertarian bent to gain traction in most of America. The bits about the school lunches were great, but as a call to arms against the food industry, it was mostly too dumb to be of any real use. Oh, you ate fast food for 30 days and now you’re a fatass. very surprising, thank you sir.
He’s also said some really dumb shit in public that just reinforce his jackass reputation. (Making fun of retarded kids and then saying something about freedom of speech. So brave, Spurlock, so brave.)
Nonetheless, as a filmmaker, Spurlock showed a lot of promise. He was funny, if not overly earnest. Thankfully, with the show 30 Days, we get the good without the bad. The Spurlock created show (in which he serves as narrator) gives people the chance to experience lives not their own. And it’s really great.
A “minuteman patriot” lives with an immigrant family in LA. Someone who lost his job to outsourcing travels to India and works in a call center. Living on minimum wage, living in prison, all things you can see on 30 Days. For documentary junkies, it’s a perfect show (and produced by RJ Cutler). It’s a brisk hour, but emotional and effectively cut.
Highly recommended.